I have about 41,000 miles on my TCH. At about 35,000 miles I started to notice a shutter in the rear brakes at highway speeds, with moderate braking.
I took it to the dealer and they made an "adjustment". There was no improvement.
I went back to the dealer. This time they told me both rear rotors, and to a lesser extent, the front rotors, were warped, BUT the brake pads were good.
NOTE:These are the original factory pads and rotors.
This is a Kentucky car built in 11/06. I took delivery 12/03/06.
Anyone have a similar problem?
As I am out of warranty, my only option is to replace rotors and pads all around. It's not bad enough to do this yet.

 

Its all about your driving habits... Do you ride your brakes ? or do you gently ease into it? Even then 41K miles is not a bad number of miles to getting your rotors warped... But you do drive a lot if you've raked 41,000 miles b/w Dec 2006 and Dec 2007 Jus' saying...

 

Did someone with an air impact wrench tighten your lug nuts to beyond the specified 103 N*m?

Pretty much any wheel/tire place or dealership will do this. That's why I never let them remove my wheels and only I tighten the lug nuts with my own electronic torque wrench.

 

Like Squint stated, unequal torque will cause warped rotors. Ford Superduties with alloy wheels are notorious for this because of the extreme heat created stopping a 7-8000lb. truck. Alloy wheels should be hand torqued in a star pattern, usually in several steps to create an even pressure. Seems to be more prevalent on newer vehicles. Just my $.02.

Robb

 

May or may not be true. They rotors can be turned on the vehicle to eliminate the warpage depending upon how bad they are warped. You do not need to replace the pads or the rotors for this. They key is that they have to be machined on the vehicle not taken off.

The warping may actually be due to a hub which is "not true" which is causing the pulsing.

 

Other causes of warping is uneven cooling of the rotors due to water getting on the rotors such as when it rains or going through a puddle after heavy use of brakes. Also, rear tend to warp more often due to the ebrakes causing the rotors to cool at different rates.

 

Could you elaborate?

 

Yes,

When you apply the ebrakes, the calipers are pressing in on the rotors, but the calipers only touch a portion of the rotors while the rest of the rotors are not covered by the calipers. The section not covered by the caliper will cool quiker then the section in contact with the calipers. If this difference (cooling) is great, warping can occur. This really only happens if you were using the brakes more than normal (heaving braking). In those cases it is best to let the car cool off prior to parking it with ebrakes (this works well on flat areas where you can use your transmission as your brakes (put into first or park for autos)).

 

I thought rear disc brakes used a top hat style rotor with a small e-brake shoe inside the hat? That is the way my Ford and Nissan are set up. I guess I'll have to take a look at the set-up on my TCH when the weather gets a little nicer.

Robb

 

Yes, U R rite! That is how they R set up!!!